Matchup with UConn has familiar feel

Villanova’s James Bell responds to a question during a news conference at the NCAA Tournament Friday in Buffalo, N.Y. Villanova plays Connecticut in a third-round game on Saturday. (AP Photo/Nick LoVerde)

BUFFALO — For Connecticut coach Kevin Ollie, Saturday’s East Regional showdown with second-seeded Villanova at the First Niagara Center feels more like a Big 5 matchup in addition to a blast from the past of the old Big East Conference.

“I played St. Joe’s and Villanova,” the former 76er said, referring to Connecticut’s draw against the Hawks followed by the Wildcats. “I guess La Salle’s coming up next.”

No, the winner gets the survivor of the games between North Carolina and Providence, and Iowa State and North Carolina Central, but the first meeting between the Wildcats (29-4) and Huskies (27-6) since the conference shakeups does have a Big East/Big 5 feel to it.

Connecticut guard Shabazz Napier, the American Athletic Conference Player of the Year, said it was going to be a fight. Villanova coach Jay Wright believes the game is going to be a battle.

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If that’s not classic Big East/Big 5 rhetoric, nothing is.

Touch gloves and let the game begin.

Villanova won the last meeting with a 70-61 victory over the Huskies last year at the Wells Fargo Center. Connecticut took the three meetings before that. Four of the last six times these teams have gotten together, the game was decided by six points or less.

“It’s going to be a war,” Ollie said. “That’s how we play. Villanova plays the same way. We’re going to challenge each shot. We’re going to challenge each dribble. It’s going to be a fight. We’ve got to be ready for that, and we’ve got to keep throwing punches.”

Villanova’s punches usually come in the form of 3-point shots. The Wildcats (29-4) are fourth in the country in 3-pointers attempted (824) and 10th in triples made per game (8.9). Don’t expect that to change, even though Villanova is shooting 8-for-42 (19 percent) from beyond the arc in the Big East and NCAA tournaments combined.

Shooting the 3 is what the Wildcats do. No Villanova player has struggled more than James Bell. The 6-6 senior swingman has not made a 3-pointer since the end of the first half against Georgetown. He has missed 14 straight shot from beyond the arc, yet his confidence has not wavered.

“We’ve got to take good ones,” Bell said. “Some of the shots we were taking were highly contested. We’ve just got to find the open ones, make the extra pass, get our teammates better looks.”

Villanova’s struggles from the three-point line will not change Ollie’s defensive game plan.

“It’s not like we’re going to sit on their shooters,” Ollie said. “We’ve going to be right in their face. We want them to continue to struggle. That’s the respect we have for a great 3-point shooting team. I look at their body of work. If they’re creating good shots, they’re going to knock down those shots. We’ve got to get back in transition. That were I think they really hurt teams.”

Villanova’s transition game, and its ability to get in the paint, carried the Wildcats to a 73-53 victory over Milwaukee in the second round Thursday. On a night when the Wildcats shot 17.4 percent from deep (4-for-23), they connected on 61.5 percent of their two-point attempts (24-for-39), including 77 percent (14-for-18) in the second half. The Wildcats had a 19-2 advantage in fast break points and a commanding 46-20 edge in points in the paint.

However, Wright knows the Wildcats need to make shots to beat the Huskies.

“I don’t think we’ll be able to shoot as poorly as we did last night and keep a Connecticut team down to 53 points,” Wright said. “Those missed shots against a team like Milwaukee; they want to control the tempo. Those missed shots against Milwaukee didn’t turn into fast breaks. It turned into us having (to play) another 30 seconds of defense. But against Connecticut, that’s going to be Napier and those guys out in transition, and that’s going to be trouble.”

Villanova’s defense has given many teams trouble over the last month and has more than made up for its shooting woes. In the last seven games, the Wildcats have allowed an average of 57.7 points per game and limited the opposition to 43.2 percent shooting overall and 29.3 percent from deep.

Was it a change in philosophy or the result of a scolding from the coach? No. Call it an epiphany, of sorts, it just took this group a little longer to buy into Wright’s defense- and rebound first mentality.

“In the early and mid-part of the year, we were great offensively,” Wright said. “We were just outscoring people. We were average defensively, but we started to get better and better.”

“Shots will fall,” Bell said. “If you play the percentages, one out of three should drop, but defense should never change. Our effort or how tough we play and how together we play should never change. That’s the foundation of our program. That’s what we focus on most.”

“We shoot a lot, but we work on defense and rebounding even more because those are the core principles of our program,” Ryan Arcidiacono said. “That’s why we’re not concerned with our shooting. Our goal is to defend and rebound and everything feeds off of that.”

That’s vintage Big East/Big 5 speak.

“This is going to be a heck of a battle,” Wright said. “Just think about it, we played Connecticut last year (and won, 70-61), and two of the guys that started last year come off the bench now and give them strength. They’ve got other starters in there now that have even taken them to another level. So I think they’ve improved their depth. Each guy that stayed has gotten a lot better.

“I think Kevin Ollie has done an incredible job with his team. Having played them last year, having watched the film of our game last year and now watching them now, every individual on his team has gotten better, and they’ve gotten better as a team.